Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

The Viper

T he riders waiting their turn to kneel before the queen gave me a wide berth. I did nothing to dissuade them, leaving my hand resting on the hilt of the dirk shoved into my sash. Many of those assembled came from the tribes already united with Clan Katal, familiar enough with my methods of persuasion. The riders from the remaining five tribes feared what I might do to bring them into line. While tales of the Viper might not have reached the citizens of Kelvadan, my appearance and the whispers from other warriors were enough to inspire uneasiness.

I almost snorted in wry amusement at the thought that I was more easily recognized with my face covered than without. Still, with my mask, they recognized me only as a figure to be feared—the snake of Clan Katal. I preferred it that way.

My teeth creaked in my head from grinding them as the line inched forward. My skull felt tight as the whispers of the desert in my mind turned to insistent murmuring with every step forward, as if they were anxious for me to reach the front of the line. I had plenty of time to conquer my conflicted feelings about kneeling before the queen on the way here. If it was necessary to achieve our purpose, I would put aside my pride. After all, a sword had no pride, it only did as its wielder commanded.

Something about the coming encounter made the desert stir though. I caught sight of the queen’s form, much as I remembered it, although still touched by the passage of time. Her silhouette was softened by the decade since I had seen her, but her upright posture was rigid as ever. I halfway expected the murmuring in my mind to turn to shouts upon seeing her, but they remained an insistent tether at the base of my skull, pulling me toward an unseen goal.

It seemed like just a moment, lasting an eternity, until it was only me standing in the thoroughfare before the entrance to Kelvadan. I didn’t look at the queen’s face as I stepped forward and dropped to one knee in the hardened sands a few paces in front of her.

“By the sands, I pledge to test my blood against all others in the Ballan Desert, using only the strength of my body and the iron of my will.”

As I repeated the same words as all those who had knelt before me, a sharp intake of breath came from the queen. While my mask limited my peripheral vision, I saw the shadow of movement from the woman beside her, most likely an instinctual grab for a weapon.

I finished my pledge and raised my head, meeting the eyes of my mother for the first time in ten years.

Sounds of boisterous conversations and revelry drifted through my tent flap. I sat cross-legged on my sleeping mat, sharpening my saber. I wouldn’t be able to use it in the combat event’s coming Trials, instead switching it out for a blunted version, but my hands moved through the motion out of habit. Just as my forms brought me some semblance of peace in their familiarity, caring for my weapons soothed the whispers of magic in my mind.

I needed all the peace I could find tonight. My magic surprised me by continuing to test my control. I focused on the stinging of the blistered lines on my back to ground myself, but it was almost healed, only paining me when the sheath of my saber rubbed over it. Perhaps I should have let Lord Alasdar burn another line into my skin before I left for the Trials, but I hadn’t thought the occasion would test my control. My confidence in my skills left me without fear I could accomplish my goals, and even my confrontation with my mother had passed without incident.

While her face had paled, and she’d paused for a moment before accepting my entrance into the tournament, she had not treated me any differently than the other competitors. From the spy, Oren, she would have known to expect the Viper’s entry to the competition, and my goals in coming here. She would have come to terms with her inability to deny me entry without turning the clans further against her and had schooled herself into neutrality toward me—until she’d heard my voice. No doubt she remained unsure if it was really me. With my face covered and my voice deeper than it had been when I left—barely a man and still growing into myself—I would be difficult to recognize. I had even left my sword with Alza, on the off chance she would recognize it and change her mind about denying me entry to the Trials. Considering she had thought me dead, she likely questioned herself, though she clearly found me familiar.

Footsteps stirred the sand outside my tent, and I lifted my head just in time for the tent flap to open. A woman pushed in without invitation, glaring at me with her arms folded. I met her dark gaze from behind my mask and cocked my head at the familiar aggression in her stance, trying to place her.

Aderyn.

Her eyes darted back and forth between my mask and the saber in my lap, and I tensed. She would recognize it as having belonged to my great-grandfather, gifted to me on my sixteenth birthday, and the only thing I had taken with me when I left Kelvadan in the dead of night. Longer than any other I had ever seen, with curved quillons decorating the cross-guard hilt, there would be no mistaking it.

She looked harder than she had when I left, not that she had ever been soft. Her hair had been shaved off to show a tattooed stripe across her head. It gave me pause, as such a style was a mark of the clans from when the desert had first been crossed, and I wouldn’t expect it on somebody dedicated to Kelvadan as she was .

“Erix.” She made the one word sound like a question and an accusation at the same time. I didn’t respond, although my eye twitched. Even Lord Alasdar never called me by my name, and he was one of the few people who knew it.

“I knew it was you. You can take off the stupid mask. It won’t hide your identity,” she continued.

I ignored her comment. “Why have you come?”

“Why? Why—why did you let Ginevra think you were dead for ten years? Let her–us– think we failed you for so long?”

I slid my saber back into its sheath with snap.

“You did fail me. And you continue to fail this desert.”

Aderyn’s eyes flamed in her stony face. The familiarity of that expression stirred something within me, but I stood firm.

“You can’t do this to her.” Her voice was a murmur, but still carried clearly over the noise of the opening celebration outside. “We know what will happen if you win.”

“Are you saying you won’t let me compete in the Trials?”

Aderyn shook her head. “Queen Ginevra won’t change her mind about that.”

“Then we have nothing more to say. I will be named Champion of the Desert, and then I will leave Kelvadan again.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” she argued, but backed toward the exit anyway.

I shrugged. Even if she herself competed, and she had been the closest to beating me in training before I left the city, I had improved tenfold since then under Lord Alasdar’s training. I could best her.

Grabbing my dirk to sharpen it as well, I waited for her to leave.

“Erix.” She looked over her shoulder with her hand resting on the tent flap. “If you violate the peace of the Trials, I won’t hesitate to stop you. By any means necessary.”

“You have nothing to fear in that regard,” I promised with actual sincerity and without doubt that Aderyn would do everything in her power to end me if I engaged in foul play. “I cannot cheat for the same reason you can’t. The people must believe in their Champion for the desert to be saved.”

“And the people will believe in Kelvadan’s Champion.” She disappeared into the night, and I paused, wondering who she’d laid her faith in. Perhaps if we had been able to question Oren, I might have known who my fiercest competitors would be. It hardly mattered now though. I was here, and I would do what I had to.

I finished sharpening my dirk before laying down on my mat to rest. I pulled my mask off, setting it just off to the side next to my saber, both within easy reach. The Trials would start in the morning, and I would emerge victorious.

The line of competitors, mounted on their horses and standing shoulder to shoulder, stretched farther than I could see. Not that I bothered searching the faces of my adversaries. We stood with our backs to the towering city, watching the sky turn from black to gray to pale orange as the sun prepared to crest the horizon.

Alza pawed the ground and flicked her ears back toward me, as if asking what we were waiting for. I patted her neck, having very little patience of my own to share. I itched to get through the first event, announced as we gathered here before dawn. It was a hunt. We each had to return with a clean kill by midday or be eliminated from the Trials. I was impatient to move on to something more difficult. Even more than that though, I itched to ride out into the open sands and away from the shadow of Kelvadan. Something about the densely packed crush of life, intensified by all those drawn in by the Trials, turned the whispers of the desert in my mind from an insistent nuisance to an inexorable demand that I do… something. I wanted to peel off my skin, but I was unsure what it was my magic wanted from me in exchange for a moment of stillness. The only battles to be had for the next weeks would not end in bloodshed, making the opportunity of a reprieve from my madness seem slim.

While the Trials had a brutal and bloody history, deliberately killing a competitor had been outlawed since the founding of Kelvadan, Kelvar being the last Champion to behead his final enemy and emerge victorious from the duels. Now, the duels were performed with blunted blades and foul play was frowned upon. I was equal parts relieved not to have to dispatch all my opponents and enraged that the importance of the Trials had been undercut in such a fashion. Unfortunate riders still perished every Trial though, whether through accident or the will of the desert. I guessed it was one of the purposes of the opening hunt: to weed out those who were too young or incompetent before the events became truly dangerous.

Finally, the edge of the sun came into view and the line of riders broke, green warriors galloping off hectically while more experienced competitors carefully picked a direction to ride in. I nudged Alza to head east, away from the majority of riders who headed to the plains dotted with arrowgrass where herds of Oryx would roam.

The rules of the opening hunt hadn’t specified what kind of game one needed to bring in, only that you must cleanly slay a creature and present it at the central fire of the encampment by the time the sun reached its zenith. While many would aim for slower and more plentiful oryx, the number of hunters tracking them would spook and scatter the herds. Taking down a predator like a red wolf or a caracal came with more risk, but I would avoid the inexperienced and enthusiastic hunters driving off my kill.

The sounds of other hoofbeats indicated a handful of riders following my lead, but quickly dispersed until Alza and I were alone among the dunes. Zephyr slept in my tent, head tucked under one wing. I would leave him behind during all the events, despite how valuable he would be on such a hunt, unwilling to risk anybody saying I did not follow the terms of the Trials to the letter. After all, such complaints were why Lord Alasdar was not welcome in Kelvadan anymore.

Alza’s ears pricked, and I pulled her to a halt, listening for what she heard. In the distance, in the direction of a formation of golden rocks, quiet yips signaled the presence of a caracal. Hopefully they were hunting in small numbers so I could make quick work of my kill.

Reaching across my back, I pulled out my short bow and several arrows, looped around my shoulder. My saber wouldn’t be very useful on this hunt, but I never rode out without it.

Alza slowed as I nudged her toward the rocks. She seemed to sense my need for quiet and placed her hooves gently. It might be more difficult to sneak up on the caracal this way, but I was in a better position to give chase on horseback, and it would give me the advantage against a larger group of them.

We approached a bend in the rock, the sound of yips and growling growing louder, echoing against the stone. I leaned forward to peek around the edge, seeing a single caracal bent over a small carcass, likely an unfortunate jackrabbit or rock squirrel. It had a successful hunt, and now I was about to have mine.

Nocking my bow, I took advantage of the animal’s distraction to take careful aim. I inhaled the scent of the earth and the blood of the dead animal on the ground, calling on the desert to guide my arrow. I wasn’t as practiced of an archer as a swordsman, but the desert had never let me go hungry while I served her, and my arrows flew true on a hunt.

The threads of magic snapped taught in my mind, like an untamed horse pulling on its lead, just as I let the arrow loose. Before it could meet its mark, a hooded figure dropped from the short rocky cliff above the caracal, where I had failed to see it crouched. It landed squarely on the caracal, who yelped before suddenly cutting off.

My arrow ricocheted on the rock over the figure’s head, having missed them by inches. Their head snapped up and I was pinned by a pair of golden eyes. For some reason, I felt as if I couldn’t move, bow still held ready at the side of my face.

She, for I could now see the figure was a woman, sprang to her feet and drew the saber from across her back, leaving her short knife embedded in the caracal’s neck just below its skull. It had been a clean stab, severing the caracal’s spinal cord and killing it neatly.

“I thought it was against the rules to engage with other competitors on the hunt,” she accused, although the way she held her blade didn’t seem to speak of any reluctance to fight.

“I was shooting at the caracal,” I admitted. I didn’t need to explain myself to her, but something familiar in her voice took me off guard and left me more focused on placing it than the contents of our conversation.

“Well, this kill is mine.” She sheathed her saber with a snap and stepped over the felled animal without turning her back to me, clearly distrustful. Probably rightly so.

She yanked her smaller blade free from the caracal, revealing it to be only a few inches long, before wiping it on her pants and shoving it into her belt. She seemed utterly unperturbed by the blood now smeared across her thighs and belly, a sight that stirred something odd in me.

“That’s a rather small knife for hunting caracal with,” I pointed out before I could stop myself. I should be off to find other prey, but my legs were frozen at Alza’s side, refusing to nudge her away. My mount didn’t seem inclined to move of her own accord either.

“It works better than a sling. Besides, I knew it would be distracted with the dead rock squirrel I planted.”

My brows furrowed, rubbing up against my mask as I frowned. “If you had already caught the rock squirrel, then why bother with the caracal?”

The glare she fixed me with knocked something lose in my head, and I was brought back to the last time I had stared into those eyes—my blade at her throat and magic crackling through the air. It was a glare that had haunted my dreams too often in the past months.

“Keera,” I breathed involuntarily, cutting off whatever answer she had been about to give. It had been months since she had told me the name I hadn’t even meant to ask for, but I had woken with it echoing in my mind more times than I cared to admit. The fact that she escaped that night irked me, and the fact that I had let her grated at me even more. Even though I had hesitated to slit her throat twice, knowing the last person to see my true face lived ached like a healing brand. Still, I had turned away to douse the burning tents while she dashed off into the night. I thought it likely that she died, despite how often she visited me in my sleep, seeing it as my subconscious reminding me of the shame of my failures. Now, Keera crouched before me looking utterly transformed. Where her hair had been matted and dark before, it was now a mass of curls that shined the darkest brown in the sun. Her cheeks had filled out to accentuate her heart shaped face, deep set eyes under a bold brow, giving her a look of proud strength. The difference in her appearance made it clear why I hadn’t recognized her immediately, but she wore the same defiant expression I remembered.

She sprang to her feet and drew her saber once more, the silver blade a blur as she whipped it out before her in defense .

I lowered my bow and raised my hands. “I plan to abide by the rules of the Trials. You are safe from me...for now.”

She didn’t sheath her weapon, but the tip lowered a few inches. She clicked her tongue a few times and the sound of hooves signaled her approaching mount. As a golden stallion rounded the bend, I nearly choked on my own tongue.

Lord Alasdar’s warhorse, Bloodmoon, calmly approached the woman, although I didn’t miss his dark eyes flicking over me and imagined they held distaste. I’m sure my gaze held no less contempt, as he had certainly left me with broken ribs from a savage kick more than once. I supposed I should have guessed Keera took him in her escape, but it seemed more likely to me that he had run off during the lightning storm. After all, he was only a few degrees shy of completely wild and liked nobody, not even Lord Alasdar.

Things seemed to have changed though, as Bloodmoon thrust his nose into Keera’s chest, completely ignoring her drawn sword and searching for affection. She kept her glare on me but patted him on the nose. The last time I had tried to touch him, I nearly lost several fingers to his vicious teeth.

I slung my bow back across my shoulder and stifled a sigh. Whoever this woman was, every second I spent in her presence left me more off balance than the last. I couldn’t afford to lose focus with so much riding on the Trials.

Now that my weapon was away, Keera seemed a little more at ease and hoisted the caracal off the ground with one arm, hefting it across her mount’s back. She followed it, making the leap up onto his significant height easier than I might have guessed.

“I don’t know what you’re doing, but you won’t get away with it,” she announced as she kneed her mount around. “I know what you have planned for Kelvadan, and we are ready. I won’t let the city fall.”

With that, she kicked her horse into an easy canter and headed back toward the mountains in a puff of dust. I squinted after her for a few moments before realizing how bright the sun had gotten.

I had wasted far too much time talking to the woman, and I still needed to have my own kill back to the encampment by midday.